darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"I am not convinced that anything is going to do either of us any good." He needed to be able to apologize, but at the moment it was so big he was locked onto minute detail as a coping mechanism. His throat hurt. Not from the bruises but because he's failing at being a Jedi right now, entirely.

And the more he understands and believes what is happening here, the more he is failing.

"I am absolutely sure there is no good to anyone in you trying to die. Or no longer existing. Especially you and especially when you have a life, even if it isn't here."

Anakin seriously considered just turning and leaving, as it might have been the kindest thing to do.

His life. His life no longer included this man, this man who was once so integral to his very survival. Though a day didn't go by that he didn't think about him. And it wasn't as if Obi-Wan's life included him anymore, either. "He," Anakin - the Anakin he'd been so long ago - was gone.

Sometimes, somethings were better left alone.

But the date came back to mind. He knew how much time, or more precisely, how few days, had passed for Obi-Wan since... Well, Anakin didn't really want to think about the details of that day. He could sit with uncomfortable emotions but he didn't invite them.

He knew all to keenly what PTSD was like, and every line of Obi-Wan's frame spelled it out.

Anakin finally relented and moved into the living area. He grabbed the bottle of alcohol and poured Obi-Wan another drink.

"I'd give you something else to make this easier, but you're already drinking and some drugs just do not go well with alcohol."

Don't focus on the past, or worry about the future. Live in the now.

Wonderful advice, but fairly useless when the past and future, wrapped into a single person, was deposited in your present.

He took the drink from Anakin without a word and threw it back like it was medicinal, and then wrenched his breathing and heartbeat back into more reasonable patterns. Not meditative, no kind of release, just using practice and Jedi ability to force his body to comply when his mind wouldn't.

What he got was the illusion of being almost under some kind of control, and it was damn fragile, but it was something.

"I am sorry you're here, but I'm sorry that you're here for your sake, not mine. If there was a way for you to come here, there is a way for you to go home. We'll find it."

He's going to choke to death on an apology, because it is so fucking inadequate and unproductive that he's ashamed of even wanting to say it.

Edited (word correction) 2020-01-05 03:49 (UTC)

Anakin sat down and stuck the sucker back in his mouth. He finally turned off the music on his phone and took the air-pods out of his ears and let the Force tell him everything he was trying to ignore. He could fell now how fragile Obi-Wan's composure was. Not that he couldn't see it, also.

"I'm not all that worried about getting back. It's a good life, but you're doing something important here, and I shouldn't take you away from that."

And then it occurred to him he should explain a bit more.

"I don't- I mean, the me that's here, he doesn't know you're here," he said to reassure Obi-Wan. "Your plan works out fairly well."

It's odd how no matter how differently the external trappings are - the phone, the air-pods, even the sucker - the way he moved, the way he felt to Obi-Wan, and just the feel of him could be so completely Anakin.

He'd already realized that this Anakin had lived not just Anakin's past but Vader's future and end, so at least he didn't have to scramble too hard to process that, too.

"I'm not going to leave Luke." He thought the plan working out fairly well was a good thing, but that was pretty uncertain. "And you're far too restless to stay long, but you being here isn't taking me away."

He didn't want to ask. He really didn't. He couldn't not. "What's the end of the story?" Yours, Anakin, not his.

"You might be surprised at what I'm good at this time around," he said. "We've got time."

Anakin thought about what to say about the future. What could convey everything that was the next fifty or so years for him, for the galaxy.

"The end? Palpatine is destroyed, the Force is balanced," and then after another thoughtful pause - he could be thoughtful when he tried, "The Jedi survive." Of course that leaves out so much of the middle. But Obi-Wan had asked for the end.

"I fully believe you're capable of doing anything you want to do."

He'd told Yoda that, when trying to explain to Yoda why having Anakin betray a friend was a terrible idea. ...Neither Yoda nor Mace had understood.

His fingers twitched slightly when he just about cracked again, but then he managed to regain the control he'd had. His focus was just crap. It was why he wasn't healed at all, why he was composed not calm, why his shielding were barely existent.

...All things considered, though, better than he had been and finally starting, at least to not be so damn erratic about it.

"What happened to you."

He'd tried to explain to Yoda, more than once, that he was very much attached to Anakin. That hadn't gotten through, either.

Feeling everything now, Anakin couldn't ignore how... wrecked, bothing mentally and physically, Obi-Wan was. And though he had a new life with new habits and skills, old habits didn't die with old bodies, especially when memory persisted across the universes.

He wasn't trying to avoid Obi-Wan's question, he was more than willing to explain everything to Obi-Wan. But he couldn't help but ask first, "Do you have a med-kit here?"

He shook his head, minutely, but it wasn't the answer to a question Anakin had asked. "I don't know," he admitted. "Probably somewhere. What do you need?"

Anakin had a vague sense of what he'd put Obi-Wan through, he had the memories that played on repeat in his mind. But his memories were very first-person perspective. It was an entirely different thing to be here now, in front of Obi-Wan, feeling through the Force all the damage he'd caused this man. If Anakin was going to be here for the time being, he was going to address what he'd broken.

"Something to address bruising, fractures, and a concussion," Anakin said while standing up. "Just point me in a general direction and I'll grab it."

He thought at first that Anakin was asking for himself, but even in his current... less than focused state was able to be pretty sure that he would have noticed if Anakin had a head injury and broken bones.

Then he realized Anakin was talking about him.

Then he realized if Anakin was that precise... Anakin still had Force abilities. Why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't he just assumed? Why did the idea slightly alarm him, but enormously, overwhelming, relieve him?

Why was Anakin trying to take care of him?

"I'm fine, Anakin. There's nothing dangerous, here, and nothing I didn't earn."

"I'm already up," Anakin pointed out, repressing his revolusion at the idea that Obi-Wan thought he had 'earned' injuries from him, like he'd deserved it. As if suffering longer was penance.

"If you don't point me in a direction I'll just start looking through shit. It'll be faster if you just tell me, but I like keeping busy so this comes down to your preference.

Well he had cut off Anakin's limbs and left him on fire.

He did not, however, think suffering was penance. Penance was connected to absolution.

Also that was...

That was both Anakin and an older and steadier Anakin than he had ever known.

"Check the cupboard in the bathroom. It's likely in the box there." The unpacked box, but roughly the right location.

Anakin was quick about retrieving the med-kit and returning to the living area. He sat down closer to Obi-Wan this time, opening the med-kit and pulling out the things they'd need. It was so strange how he'd lived an entire life without having access to one of these kits, and yet he remembered how to use everything in one.

"So... what happened to me?" he said while he worked. He took a breath. "That's... a lot to explain. But I can say you didn't fail me."

Having realized Anakin was now aware of the Force, Obi-Wan made an attempt to at least shut shunt most of the physical discomfort away from Anakin. Treatment made most things feel better, but he knew very well the arms would not be fun.

And if he could spare Anakin that, he would.

He blinked at Anakin, very slowly and pretty dubiously. "That... needs an explanation."

Anakin would have told Obi-Wan to not bother, it's not like he was no stranger to limb pain. But some things you had to let others control for themselves. He simply pulled out the right sprays, salves, and cleaning supplies.

Okay, an explanation. Anakin gave that a moment's thought. "What Palpatine did to me, the place I've been living has a term for it. It's called grooming. It's when someone builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit, and abuse them... I was going to be his the moment he first saw me on that landing platform when I was nine."

When he'd first remembered all this, Anakin had not been this composed about the truth. He'd been very angry, but having a period of being angry about it had helped. Now he could look back on it as something that had happened. Sure, if he thought about it extensively, his emotions might flare up again, but he could sit with that.

"The Jedi weren't very... equipped to notice emotional manipulation." He gave a small shrug. It's what had been. A breath and he'd moved on. "And they all thought Palpatine was as close an ally as a politician could be. Part of grooming involves manipulating care givers into not noticing the red flags of abuse."

Anakin was most certainly used to limb pain much more severe. Obi-Wan had experienced all sorts of pain, and injury, much more serious than any he had now, and Anakin had still insisted on taking care of him.

Sometimes you spare the people you love the smaller things that you can, because you can't spare them the bigger hurts.

"I trusted Palpatine. I believe at one point I compared him to a doting uncle, when discussing the relationship between the two of you with the Council." His tone is quiet, but mostly tired, but also sad. His focus is... elsewhere, in as much as he has any. "Palpatine is evil. The Jedi are profoundly... ill equipped for a good many things, he turns out. Neither of those are my responsibility, at least not soley, but that doesn't change... my responsibility to you, if not as your teacher as your friend."

And he is... going to try not to go spiraling back into very recent memories, now, apparently.

Anakin paused his work, now that everything was prepped. He wasn't sure Obi-Wan wanted him to touch him. "Which injury first?" Was the question to the solution for the problem.

"After we 'rescued' Palpatine from Grevious' kidnappings, I started having visions of Padme dying in childbirth." As composed as he'd been so far, and as hard as he tried to keep his voice measured, something wavered when he said that. He couldn't forgive himself for a lot of things, even from a life long since passed on. His role in Padme's death would always be one of them.

After he'd found his voice again, he said. "I reacted to that in all the wrong ways."

He opened his eyes and found and met Anakin's when he heard the change in Anakin's voice. "You were under a tremendous amount of pressure, Anakin, a good deal of it because I backed down to the Council, rather than pushing harder against what I knew was wrong. I'd already showed myself untrustworthy, in regards to you having visions. Though with that timing, I can't help but wonder how much influence in them the Chancellor had."

It's too late to matter, but again, when your past and future come to you in the present -

"I can't imagine any other reaction you could have had."

"Love," Anakin scoffed in a self-depreciating way. "Cool motive, still murder. I still had choices."

He let that settle before explaining more. "Palpatine did at least know about the visions. He baited me with promises of helping me save Padme... He actually does have the ability, but... I think that's why Padme died. And I didn't. Take life from another person and give it to someone else."

"I... don't know." Why Padme died. He was careful around the subject, both for Anakin's sake, and because her death was still fresh in his mind and she'd been a good friend, and because he hadn't forgotten the implication, somewhere in there, that he and Padme had betrayed him. "I only know that at we couldn't find anything physically wrong when she died."

He stopped and pulled up his sleeves, fairly matter of fact. "Start there." They could still talk and, if nothing else, the bruises from Anakin's hands forcing his arms apart and back by the wrist had bled to indistinct and blurred into more generalized bruising from the bones feathering into green-stick fractures from the force.

Anakin still had no ability to heal others, but it was easy to see where to start. Med-kits only had so much bacta products in them so he made sure to apply the spay judiciously.

He understood how Padme was not a good topic for all the various reasons!so he moved on.

“He- Palpatine did other things. I can’t prove it, but I know he was messing with my thoughts. With the Force and without. He lied about the Jedi. Manipulated facts and evidence to make me believe they were trying to take over the Republic...” working on Obi-Wan’s injuries gave him a good excuse to keep his eyes averted.

“He never said it exactly like that, but when members of the Council went to arrest him, I was... confused. When Master Windu wanted to kill him, I thought I was doing the right thing to stop him because the Council rarely condoned killing... I shouldn’t have intervened, I should have just let him.”

Force, he hated the smell of Bacta.

It was an olfactory trigger for some of the worst memories in his life.

Until the most recent, anyway. By comparison those were now good memories.

"Mace was more aware of what was happening than the rest of The Council combined." When Anakin finished with one arm, he turned his hand around and briefly brushed his fingers over Anakin's wrist, making an attempt to settle and reassure.

An unsteady attempt to be sure, but an attempt.

"This began when the Republic disbanded it's military. It continued when the Clones were commissioned, and that was at least ten years before Geonosis, and Dooku trying to... convert me. The Chancellor manipulated you , abused you, and used you, and had an enormous amount of pride tied up in having you as his Apprentice, but the trap was set long ago and we walked into it."

Anakin stopped what he was doing with the medical supplies.

“I know.” He knew and he still couldn’t forgive himself because nothing could correct what he’d done - what the copy of him that was out there doing right now, making memories for him.

He forced himself to look up, to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes because at the bare minimum, he should show that remorse. And he didn’t care how his emotions bit at his eyes and his vision blurred.

“I am so sorry, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan's impulse was to dismiss the apology.

There were many reasons for that, but when Anakin looked up at him it entirely stopped being able whether he needed - or even wanted - an apology, if he deserved an apology, his own guilt and grief, and -

And Anakin needed to say the words and have them heard, understood and believed.

"I know." His voice was rough, but not cracking and his eyes most certainly filled with tears. "So am I."

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